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Disable Zoom On Dell Touchpad, Modify Dell Touchhpad Settings

I have been fairly impressed with Windows 7 and my new Dell laptop. One of the items that had been getting on my nerves was the fact that I would randomly zoom in or zoom out of various screens I was on specifically when using a web browser. This is done by pinching two fingers together on the Dell touchpad and while I was not doing this on purpose the way I use the touchpad must simulate this pinch an awful lot. Follow the directions below to disable the pinch zoom for your Dell touchpad on a computer running Windows 7 or Windows Vista.

Disable Dell Touchpad Zoom:

Windows 7 Control Panel: Launch the Windows 7 Control Panel by clicking the Start button and selecting Control Panel from the pop up navigation menu as displayed in the below image.

Windows 7 Hardware & Sound: Once the Control Panel is open click on the “Hardware and Sound” title to display the Windows 7 “Hardware and Sound” Control Panel which is displayed in the below image.

Open Mouse Properties: Now click Mouse which is underneath the first section titled Devices and Printers. Clicking on Mouse will display the Mouse Properties configuration window which is displayed in the below image.

Dell Touchpad Properties: Make sure that the Mouse Properties configuration window has the Dell Touchpad tab active and then click in the middle of the touchpad icon to display the Dell Touchpad configuration window as displayed below.

Touchpad Gestures Settings: Now from the Dell Touchpad configuration window click on the Gestures Settings link in the right column to open the Gestures configuration, which will allow you to enable to disable being able to zoom from the touchpad, as displayed in the below image.

Disable Dell Touchpad Zoom: Remove the check from the Enable option near the top left of the Gestures configuration window as displayed in the below image. This will disable the zoom functionality from happening when you pinch two fingers together on the Dell Touchpad.

Once you have removed the check from the Enable option click the Apply button in the lower right corner to save the new Dell touchpad settings.

Verify Touchpad Zoom Disabled: Close all of the remaining configuration windows that are open and test to make sure that the zoom feature has been disabled. This can be done by using two fingers on the touchpad and either spreading them apart or bringing them closer together which if zoom was enabled would either zoom in or out of the current window.

Some keyboard, mousepad, or touchpad shortcuts are great however in the end I want my touchpad to function as a touchpad and not as a keyboard so disabling the zoom on the Dell touchpad has made life much easier for me.

Thank you SO MUCH for posting this info! I got a new laptop for Christmas and this zoom feature was infuriating me constantly! I tried several times to find a way to shut it off but failed. It was driving me crazy! This simple solution fixed it and now I can surf in a calm peaceful manner instead of a near-murderous rage! Yay!!!

Thank You! me and my sister both have dell laptops and we noticed how it does that we thought there was something wrong with our computers but now i know thats not the case and “now I can surf in a calm peaceful manner instead of a near-murderous rage! Yay!!!”

Just wanted to share my thanks for this. My 6 year old constantly touches two or more fingers on the touch pad and is constantly changing the size and he gets fustrated and I get fustrated because I have to fix it. Thank you Thank you.

Hi,
I don’t have the notebook in front of me at the moment, I’ll have to send you an update later.
I do know that when I click on the mouse, I do see 4 tabes along the top. The first one is “Button”. I look through all tabs but couldn’t find anything obvious. I don’t know what type of touchpad the 11z has…

I would search your computer for DellTPad.exe to see if you can simply launch the touchpad controls from the executable itself. If that isn’t on your computer then it is configured differently for you.

Looks like the Dell 11Z touchpad has been a problem for many people. Try going to the Dell support site and downloading the latest/greatest drivers for the touchpad on your system. Even if you already have them… reinstall them and try the article instructions above.

Hi Alex,
I found a download fron the Dell site called “Synaptics Synaptics TouchPad”. This was a recommended dowload that I found for this issue………

I will see how this goes……

At times you may want to disable the notebook touchpad, whether is hard to use or you always use an external mouse (make sure to have an external mouse connected and working before starting this process).

1. Make sure the latest driver for the touchpad is installed (you may need to use an external USB or Bluetooth mouse), for more information refer to

Hey author of this article,i have been pulling my hair out for the past 2 weeks since I got my new Asus netbook and it has a synaptics mouse. Everywhere i looked had instructions that did not work, but for some reason your Dell instructions worked :) thank you sooo much i appreciate your help… i finally wont go insane when using my mouse., again thanks

No problem! Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback. Could you reply with the model number of your Asus that this article helped resolve the synaptics mouse issue? Then hopefully others looking for a resolution to the same model Asus Netbook may be able to find it quicker.

We are also glad to hear that you are done pulling out your hair and won’t be going insane any time soon. :)

It means that you either do not have a synaptics pointing device installed or you have the wrong driver for your synaptics touchpad installed. I would go to dell.com, login, download the correct touchpad drivers, and install them. That should resolve the problem above for you.

Dell Latitude E5510
Thanks for this thread. I have been driven mad with touchpad setting (and missing tab in the mouse window of control panel). Finally found the software after searching hard drive. It was here:-
c:\program files\DellTPad\DellTPad.exe

as everyone said thanks very much for this advice i thought it was a fualt on my brand new dell so you saved me getting a red face when speaking to dell , v v v annoying settings on the mouse zooming in and out when not needed
apart from that love my dell
again thanks very much